Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Thursday Morning

I’m currently living in a single bedroom studio, one of seven apartments residing in a large old house. Comfortable and close to both Tube and overland trains it’s a decent living situation. The only real problem is the proximity of the apartments, which means that sound carries well from one room to another. That’s not really a problem considering I’m hardly ever home (London life), and more often than not the last person in the house to go to bed each night.

However, it can cause a few head aches if your upstairs neighbour decides to move their furniture around at 1am Monday morning.

Or when the couple who live next door decide to have a drunken screaming argument outside your flat, like the stupid pricks did in the wee hours of Thursday morning. As far as mornings go, that particular one wasn't one of my best. I will transcribe the details now.

I went to bed at about midnight Wednesday, weary from a solid PlayStation 2 workout. It wasn't long before I was fast asleep, floating through the land of nod. I was snapped out of this blissful state roughly 90 minutes later, when the couple next door arrived home in a state of advanced inebriation. I may have slept through their home-coming, if it wasn't for the fact that the female was screaming her head off.

It's a bit unnerving to be woken by the sound of screaming. My first thought was "Dear God, Werewolf attack" (hey, I was half asleep) but my fears slowly dissipitated when I heard the girl burst out laughing. As it turned out, it was just some annoying drunken tomfoolery. The girl would scream, the guy would try to quieten her with a pleading hush of "Please shut up, you'll wake the whole house". Which was then followed by the intoxicated witch cackling "Nobody tells me what to do!" and then screaming again.

This would cause the guy to desperately beg her to be quiet, which would inspire miss screamy pants to squawk in defiance, which would cause the exasperated boyfriend to try and mute her. So on, so forth, rinse and repeat. The boozed up power struggle went on for a further ten minutes, and just at the point where I was about to go outside and punch them both in the throat, they opened the door to their flat and went in, and everything went quiet.

It was about 2am at this point, and thinking that my idiot neighbours had turned in for the night, tried to get back to sleep. Less than ten minutes later I heard their door burst open, the chick came running out, and the screaming started up again. "Fuck this", I thought. I went to my kitchen to get a saucepan. "I'll knock this bitch out and deal with the assault charges in the morning".

It was at this point the distressed boyfriend came out, once again urging his insane sweetheart to stop the ruckus and go to bed. His pleas were cut short by an audible "click". The "click", of course, signalling the locking of the door behind him.

Romeo and Screamiet were now locked out of their flat.

The chick was still screaming, but this time she was crying while doing it, because she thought the boyfriend had blamed her for the lock out. The combination of sobbing and squawking made for the most horrendous sounds, and I found myself pining for my old house (the one with the caved in roof). So there we ere again with the Banshee Willing and the frazzled boyfriend trying to hush her, though this time a loud thumping sound joined the acoustics, as the guy tried frequent attempts at kicking his door in.

I toyed with the idea of going out into the corridor to see if he wanted me to call a locksmith, the guy had done nothing wrong besides having excruciatingly poor taste in women. But the plan was vetoed by the simple fact that I didn't want to come face to face with the Drunken Banshee hell beast wailing on the stair case. Christ, the hysterical bitch could have had rabies for all I knew.

The night of a thousand screams eventually came to a conclusion, when the boyfriend (no doubt close to suicide by this point) went outside and smashed his front window. He crawled in to the apartment, then unlocked the door and let his retarded Pterodactyl girlfriend back in. After that they went to bed, or they murdered each other - I didn't care, as long as they were quiet. I drifted off at 3:30am and managed about four hours sleep, then headed off to work.

I could still hear that feral tart’s blood curdling screams ringing in my tired ear canals as I rode the train to Feltham. I decided to take my mind off the ordeal by concentrating on my fellow travellers, maybe there was somebody interesting I could ogle. It was at about this time I noticed three ticket inspectors waddling up the aisle. They were of interest, because they were all old guys; and you just don’t see many elderly people in this city. It’s mainly due to the fact that they can’t handle the frenetic rat race lifestyle.

I was at an RSL club in Adelaide back in April, and was chatting to a senior citizen named Ronald. I explained the proceedings of an average day in London, and he was so terrified he had a pro-lapse on the carpet right then and there. It truly is that intimidating.

But there they were, three doddering old fools whose purpose of the day was to check the tickets, and hand out fines appropriately. On the journey to work, these guys managed to fine no less than six people in my carriage alone. And fair enough they should be so harsh, what with the British Rail service being the pristine, clock work, perfect system that it is.

Two Chinese girls were amongst those fined, by their luggage and poor English skills they were obviously tourists on their way to Heathrow. The girls had tickets to show the inspector, but they were the wrong ones. They had probably misunderstood the zoning system, or (more probably) been sold the wrong tickets by one of the unhelpful blobs who man London's ticket counters. The reason was inconsequential, as they were both handed fines by the disinterested inspector. unsurprisingly, this caused the girls much stress. Train fines are £20 a pop in London. A rude shock for the average Londoner, agony for the tourist converting back to their own currency.

As one of the inspectors shuffled past me, his name badge became unclipped and fell off. The silly bastard didn't realise it had happened, mainly because he was so fucking old. I picked it up for him and tried to give it to him.

"I've already checked your ticket!"

The decrepit fool croaked at me, damn near covering me in spittle (fun fact: did you know that the average pensioner's spittle consists of 80% saliva, 20% cat food?). I held the badge closer to his senile eye-balls so he could better grasp what was happening. He snatched the badge out of my hand, and waddled off without a thank you. That's the last time I help out the elderly. Actually, that was also the first time. I usually steer clear of the smelly old fucks.

The world as a whole was really starting to shit me on this particularly morning, so I decided to lose myself in a copy of the Metro. The front page story was about a heroic young boy who ran back into a burning house to wake his sleeping father and save him. I thought the article may prove the morning's one saving grace, so I gave it a thorough reading.

The reason the father was sleeping through a house fire? He was too fucked up on Marijuana and Alcohol. The reason the house caught fire in the first place? The four year old boy was emulating his father's drug habits in the front lounge room.

The father survived. The boy did not.

Honestly, sometimes the human race shits me to tears. Some days I find myself wishing a fucking comet would just plough into Mother Earth and put us all out of our misery. And like I said earlier, all of the events transcribed here happened by 8:45am - 15 minutes before my working day had even begun. I honestly thought it was going to turn out to be a horrific fucking day, but 9am onwards turned out to be a quiet, calming day at work. Honestly, isn't life strange some times? Who can honestly make sense of it all?

I'll tell you who: Static Cat.

Static Cat has been to the edge of reality, and he lived to tell the story. Static Cat knows all, he's been there man. Rock on.

Side Note 1: The next morning (Friday) wasn’t as eventful…until the train ride between Clapham Junction and Fletham, when a homeless guy tried selling copies of the Big Issue to the travellers. An undercover train worker (and I didn’t know these existed) lept up and promptly told him it was illegal to beg on London transport. The vagrant let loose with a tirade of abuse, and then the two of them had a scuffle pinning me to the door I was leaning on in the process. Seriously, who needs Disney Land when you've got the South West London train?

Side Note 2 (coz god knows this post isn’t long enough already, is anybody actually still reading?): That screaming drunk couple outlined in the first paragraphs aren’t theoretically my next door neighbours. They live in flat 1, I live in flat 3. I just thought it would make the story easier if I said they lived next door.

Flat 2 that separates us belongs to another couple. The guy is British, the girl is Middle Eastern sounding. They spend half their time laughing and chatting, the other half of the time is spent in yelling sobbing arguments. One word to describe their relationship? Bi-Polar.

Honestly, what a fucking nut house I live in. I’m the sanest person living there.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Take the Day Off to J Off

Happy Valentine’s Day, Fuckers.

A whole day dedicated to romance.

I woke up today to find a gift waiting for me outside my front door. My heart went all a flutter, as I naturally assumed it was a present from a secret admirer. Imagine my disappointment when I opened the box and there were no chocolates inside it. Just a dead rat with “You’re Next” written on it.

Fucking Landlord, I wish he’d stop leaving shit like that on my door step. He’s been a bit “tetchy” since I missed that rent payment. Bah, he’ll get over it.

More importantly – today is the day to express your love for that special somebody in your life. Your Husband/ Wife/ Girlfriend/ Boyfriend/ Dog corpse you keep in the freezer and fuck on weekends. Failing that, it is the perfect time to let that “friend” of yours know that you want to take the relationship a step further. Or maybe give a card to somebody you barely even know - but want to shag.

However, there will be a few of you out there that don’t fall into any of those categories. Those forlorn, loveless vagabonds. Those beggars on the streets of love. I read an article on the MSN homepage today “10 tips for coping with Valentine’s Day” - which was basically a list of things that single people can do to cope with the “loneliness and frustration” of the romantic holiday.

These MSN articles are written by bored housewives and are 90% useless. So I scrapped the list and created my own. It should be easy to remember, it’s a very compact list of suggestions – perfect for coping with any feelings of loneliness and frustration this day may bring:

1. MASTURBATE

And that completes the list. Yes kids, it’s truly that simple. When you get home from work tonight just belt one out.

Guys – Think of something sexy to get you in the mood, such as Cheer Leaders, Guns - or even better – Cheer Leaders with Guns. Grab a box of tissues, drop your pants, and rub out a few knuckle children.

Ladies - You require a more romantic setting to get you in the mood. So pour yourself a hot bath, put on Hanson’s new CD, light some candles and climb in to the warm water. For some mental stimulation, think of somebody sexy like Tom Selleck or Richard Grieco. Then grab your bean, and START FLICKING.

Enjoy the day all of you couples and young lovers out there. For those loveless single people reading - If you are going to utilise my suggestion, just be wary where you do it.

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Return of the P-Shop

Well if you couldn’t tell by my gorgeous new header above, I’ve downloaded Photoshop back on to my computer. Just in time too, I think I might bang up a few portraits for Valentine’s Day. Speaking of which: I was churning out a composition earlier today; a couple of Elves riding Dolphins through a Waterfall made out of hearts and butterflies.

But for some reason it turned out as a Panda gnawing on a human arm in front of a couple of distressed Nuns:

Gosh kids, can you believe it’s February already? This year is just flying past.

January was a pretty uneventful month, probably due to the fact that I took it a lot easier on the booze and socialising than I did the month before. Felt I needed a few weeks to dry out. It’s weird staying relatively sober, you don’t wake up every day feeling like a herd of Cattle stampeded over your body during the night. You also have plenty of money left over come the end of the month. And if it wasn’t so Goddamn BORING I’d probably stay sober for the rest of my life.

Fuck December was a rough ride, I drank several bath tubs full of Guinness over that festive period. The problem with a decent session of Irish Stout, is that when you take a dump the next day it feels like your squeezing out a dead Seal Pup covered in oil.